Fedoseev Wins Aeroflot, Qualifies For Dortmund

Vladimir Fedoseev won the strong Aeroflot Open tournament on Wednesday. The 22-year-old Russian grandmaster was the only player to finish on 7/9, and qualified for the Dortmund super-tournament later this year.

The annual Aeroflot Open in Moscow, sponsored by the country's major airline, had its first edition in 2002. It quickly grew into one of the strongest open tournaments of the year.

In last week of February (Feb 21-March 2) the 15th edition was held in hotel Kosmos in the Ostankinsky District of northern Moscow. Players from 28 different federations played in the top group, including 73 grandmasters and 21 international masters.

Traditionally, the day after the tournament there's also a blitz event. This was very strong as well, if only because world championship (and 2017 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship) contender Sergey Karjakin decided to come by and play!

One fan wanted to be as close to Karjakin as possible.

It wasn't a successful day for him, though. On the contrary. In this nine-round Swiss with double rounds (two games against each opponent), he scored 11/18 and tied for 28th place. Karjakin lost 92.4(!) blitz Elo points along the way.

The tournament was convincingly won by Anton Korobov (15.5/18) ahead of GMsRauf Mamedov and Daniil Dubov.